Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Reading for the Rest of the Summer

Last week, while my wife and I were in Shreveport for my mother-in-law's 80th birthday, I made a pilgrimage to the local Books-A-Million Bookstore. If you haven't been in the South much, Books-A-Million is like a southern version of Barnes & Noble. A few years back, I was traveling once a month to Anniston, Alabama, and always managed to find time to stick my head in the door of the Books-A-Million there. But I first met the chain in Shreveport (or Bossier City, to be geographically precise).

My mother-in-law loves the bookstore as much as I do, and the two of us wandered around for a good hour or more. She picked up a cookbook; I found half a dozen novels or so, and decided to stop there. So with what I already had waiting to be read at home, here's the list of what I'll be tackling over the next few weeks:

Providence, a novel by Chris Coppernoll.

Faces in the Fire, a novel by T.L. Hines.

The Passion of Mary-Margaret, a novel by Lisa Samson.

Where the River Ends, a novel by Charles Martin.

The Shadow of the Wind, a novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Yesterday's Embers, a novel by Deborah Raney.

Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende.

Prairie Spring: A Journey into the Heart of a Season by Peter Dunne.

Housekeeping, a novel by Marilynne Robinson.

River Rising, a novel by Athol Dickson.

Parting the Waters: Finding Beauty in Brokenness by Jeanne Damoff.

The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman.

Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places by L.L. Barkat.

Return Policy, a novel by Michael Snyder.

It's an eclectic list -- a little romance, a little suspense, some non-fiction, some essays, a couple of environmental treatises. And I've ordered Chris Fabry's June Bug, which publishes Aug. 1, and will be receiving Robin Parrish's Offworld, which I won in a contest.

I'll be busy, no?

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